Pigs for ten years
When he first raised pigs 10 years ago, Xu Yingxing, a farmer in Jiangxi, thought that raising pigs was to "spoon a few scoops of water and mix the feed". He never thought that a pigger would experience the "pig cycle", environmental storms, African swine fever, the new crown epidemic, and Major events such as the huge flood that occurred.
He raised more than 30 pigs at the beginning, and reached more than 5,000 at the peak until last year because of African swine fever. During Xu Yingxing's 10 years of raising pigs, he went from being impoverished to having money to earn, and to debts of more than 1.3 million yuan.
"I'm just a pig farmer." Xu Yingxing said, he is 39 years old this year, with a lot of white hair on his head, and he started raising pigs again.
Pig farm in the flood
On July 7th and 8th, heavy rain fell in many places in Jiangxi Province. In Xuzaowan, a small mountain village on the east bank of Poyang Lake, heavy rain triggered a landslide and broke down the walls of Xu Yingxing's pig farm.
"Broken!" Early in the morning on the 8th, Xu Yingxing discovered that the fallen wall was a rat-proof wall. This wall was just built last year to deal with African swine fever. The wall is covered with tiles. Rats can carry the African swine fever virus. For this reason, all the ground inside the pig farm’s enclosure is hardened with cement, making it difficult for rats to settle and make holes.
The death rate of African swine fever to pigs is as high as 100%, and the virus can be spread through droplets, food, food waste and other channels. After the outbreak of swine fever, Xu Yingxing asked the staff on the farm to eat and live in the farm to reduce the risk of contact and infection. They were basically vegetarian, and occasionally ate fish to improve their meals.
The 120 sows in the pig farm kept him waiting. He purchased this batch of breeding pigs from Ganzhou at the end of last year, each of which was more than 7,500 yuan, which had been bred and conceived. The sows were responsible for repaying debts and loans and "reviving" the Xujia pig farm.
Xu Yingxing said that the breeding value of this batch of sows has reached 30,000 yuan per head. If these pigs have problems again, he will definitely have no money to buy them.
In the past 5 years, there have been 4 floods in the area. On July 12, the Poyang Lake flooded over the dam, and Xuzaowan was enclosed into an isolated island overnight, and the only concrete road leading to the market town of Qingzhu Village was submerged under the water.
There is only that road in the village where you can use motor vehicles, transport feed, and transport pigs. Fortunately, in early July, Xu Yingxing bought 10 tons of feed in advance.
The traffic interruption occurred at the beginning of the year when the new crown epidemic broke out. Because of pig raising, Xu Yingxing has caught up with several major events in recent years, and almost every time he has brought "the disaster" to his pig farm.
Take the flood as an example. Right now, the feed can last for another month. If the flood doesn’t go back next month, he will use a wooden boat to transport bagged feed into the site, and workers have to carry piggybacks per ton of feed. The cost will increase by about 2,000 yuan.
The sows have entered the breeding period. If the floods that exceed the scale of 1998 continue to be besieged, the pigs that should be sold will not be shipped out-the pigs can't get on the small wooden boat. Xu Yingxing goes to the flooded intersection every day to check whether the water has receded.
Xu Yingxing still remembers that in 2016, more than 4,800 pigs were in the period of "breeding-fattening-slaughter". The floods cut off the road and the pigs that should be slaughtered could not be shipped out. The pig house that should hold 50 pigs per slaughter increased sharply to 80 pigs. More than 400 pigs were squeezed to death.
He estimated that there should be no squeezing this year-all the pigs were "processed" at the end of July last year, and he currently only has more than 100 sows. "Is this a blessing in disguise?" Xu Yingxing smiled bitterly.
Black swan outside the pig farm
In order to reduce the risk of infection caused by personal contact, Xu Yingxing took two workers to install fully automatic feeding equipment on the periphery of the pig farm on July 25.
Regarding matters within the fence of the pig farm, Xu Yingxing unhumbly calls himself "professional."
After the outbreak of African swine fever in China, Xu Yingxing only purchased bulk feed, "like pulling coal, directly loaded into the carriage from the feed factory" and transported to the pig house.
Among all the uncertainties outside the pig farm, Xu Yingxing is still the most worried about African swine fever.
Xu Yingxing’s pig farm is a self-breeding type, with a maximum of 300 female breeding pigs, which can maintain a stock of more than 4500 to 5000 pigs. The scale was once ranked in the top three in Hukou County. It was wiped out by African swine fever last year.
The pig farm is located in a mountain village that is not densely populated and has the geographical advantage of blocking the epidemic. Even so, Xu Yingxing did not dare to be careless. He closed the management of everyone in the pig farm. He set up three disinfection points at the entrance of the village, the road, and the gate of the pig farm to disinfect the trucks that transport feed and collect pigs.
The pig house is covered with cage nets to prevent birds from entering the virus. Workers caustic soda water every day to disinfect around the pig farm.
At the end of June 2019, Xu Yingxing was still worried and planned to buy a second-hand truck in Jiujiang City. Whenever he sells pigs in the future, he will transfer it to the outside of the village before letting the purchaser load the truck away. Before buying a car, Xu Yingxing received a call from a pig farm technician: A pig has a high fever and does not eat food, and the injection still does not work after two days.
The technician dissected the sick pig and sent samples to Wuhan overnight. After testing, the pig was confirmed to be infected with African swine fever.
Nearly 5,000 pigs were sold and buried. After Xu Yingxing sold the uninfected adult pigs, he and a dozen villagers drove nearly 2,000 piglets to the ravine, where the hook machine dug a large hole more than 3 meters deep.
The suspected case was buried deeply, leaving only the pigs on the third floor of the pig house uninfected. At that time, Xu Yingxing let two employees eat and live on the third floor without contact with the outside world, but within a month, the pigs on the third floor did not escape bad luck.
When the pig farm was emptied, Xu Yingxing sat on the steps and checked the accounts. After calculating, he owed more than 1.3 million yuan in debt. He became a poor boy more than 20 years ago.
The last time the funding chain broke was 2016. Xu Yingxing expanded the pig farm and doubled the number of sows. It will be completed in the second half of 2017 at a cost of about 6 million yuan.
Rural pig farms cannot be mortgaged and it is difficult to obtain large loans. Even policy-based loans for benefiting farmers generally need to find two “financial people” as guarantees.
The market industry chain played a role. Three long-term feed companies provided Xu Yingxing with guarantees, and Xu Yingxing received a loan of 2.2 million yuan.
Pig raising is not a dream
Before the African swine fever attacked the pig farms, Xu Yingxing hired more than 10 farmers in his village to raise pigs full-time, with a salary of more than 4,000 yuan per month. Part-time job.
23 years ago, Xu Yingxing worked outside like them. In July 1997, Xu Yingxing graduated from junior high school with upper-middle grades. His dream was to study medicine, but when he returned to his home with only two adobe houses, it was difficult for Xu Yingxing to speak to his father. At that time, the cost of high school fees plus the cost of living and boarding in the city for a year cost more than 6,000 yuan.
The adobe house collapsed in the 1998 flood. The flood level in 1998 was not as high as this year, but the water is more rapid than this year. "Rain is like pouring." Xu Yingxing watched his house collapse in the flood. Fortunately, there was nothing big in the house. The whole family ran to the high ground to escape. A catastrophe.
The village has no other industries besides planting. Boys up to Xu Yingxing's age seem to go out to work, earn money to build houses, marry wives and children.
Xu Yingxing is going to follow the adults in the same village to Yuyao, Zhejiang, where "a lot of work and quick money" will attract many farmers in Jiujiang, Jiangxi to make a living.
The travel expenses were not enough. Xu Yingxing worked as a small laborer on the construction site of the village for a month, carrying cement, moving bricks, and putting stones, earning 10 yuan a day.
In July 1997, Xu Yingxing rolled up two sweaters, carried 300 yuan, walked along the mountain path to Hukou County, and took a bus to Yuyao.
On the way, the driver and the ticket seller forced the passengers to get out of the car for a meal for 30 yuan, which made Xu Yingxing feel "strongly unbalanced" for the first time. "That meal is not worth 3 yuan, but it won't work if you don't eat it. The driver will beat people and you are weak."
After working in Yuyao for more than 10 years, Xu Yingxing married a wife and had children. In 2010, it's time for children to go to elementary school. Their grandparents are not in good health, and Xu Yingxing and his wife can only let their children run around on the construction site.
Before long, Xu Yingxing took the whole family back to Xu Zaowan and enrolled the children first.
Before leaving Yuyao, he took a few fellow villagers to participate in the construction of a "ten thousand head-level pig farm".
"Let's raise pigs. Anyway, I know how to build a pig farm." Xu Yingxing said, and his wife Zhou Shuiying put out their savings of more than 40,000 yuan. This little money is obviously not enough.
After working for more than 10 years, Xu Yingxing leads people to work without sloppy work, settles money on time, and "has a good reputation" in the village. Relying on his credibility, he bought stone, steel, cement and other building materials on credit from the town. It just so happens that the staff of the Agricultural Bank of China are promoting the "four-household" agricultural loan in the town, "there is no guarantee, just rely on credit." Xu Yingxing and his elder brother Xu Yinglin, his friends Xu Xingzhong and Xu Yanchun took out 120,000 yuan together.
The responsibility fields of the Xu Yingxing brothers’ two families were exchanged for 20 acres of wasteland, which can be connected into a patch and is also close to the main road and high-voltage lines of the village. “Roads and electricity are both important to the construction of pig farms”.
In the end, this small team collected more than 200,000 yuan, and Xu Yingxing got so much cash for the first time, and his hands were shaking. After shoveling the land and laying the foundation, more than half of the money has been used. After the 800-square-meter pig house was built, Xu Yingxing had no money to buy pigs.
The old man in the village took him over the mountains and went to a distant relative's house in Duchang County next door to find someone for help. There was a big pig farmer who could be counted in Jiujiang City.
Big pig farmers use Xu Yingxing’s pig farm as a pig breeding base. The rent is 50,000 yuan per year. Xu Yingxing and his wife work as workers on the pig farm and receive monthly wages of 1,500 yuan and 800 yuan respectively.
"I don't know how to raise pigs. To put it bluntly, it is to be an apprentice." Xu Yingxing is very grateful to the big pig farmer. "These wages were relatively low at the time, but if there is no disease or disaster in the countryside, taking care of the two children can live a life.
Following the arrival of 100 breeding pigs, there were 3 technicians. Three years later, Xu Yingxing learned the technology, but did not receive a single cent of the rent and salary of more than 300,000 yuan combined-the big pig farmers in Duchang have expanded too fast and have not survived the low pig price of the "pig cycle", and the capital chain is broken , To pay Xu Yingxing more than 30 sows to pay off debts.
Xu Yingxing remembers clearly that it was the Mid-Autumn Festival in 2013 and he finally had his own pig.
Pig economics
"More pigs are cheaper, and less pigs are expensive. This is the law of iron." Xu Yingxing, who has never studied economics, has his own understanding of the "pig cycle".
In Xu Yingxing's eyes, China's pig industry is composed of several large pig farms and tens of thousands of small and medium-sized pig farms like Xu Yingxing.
It takes 15 months for a 100-jin sow to enter the pen to the fattening pig to be released.
Breeding pigs give birth to piglets, piglets are raised into fat pigs, sows are raised into breeding pigs, and fat pigs are slaughtered in exchange for funds to introduce high-quality breeding pigs and expand production... Xu Yingxing's pig farm is integrated into the market circulation system. Always affected by changes in the entire market.
In 2016 and 2017, the market has been good for two consecutive years, which is "very incredible". Xu Yingxing expanded a three-story modern pig house and a two-story office and accommodation building.
Xu Yingxing understands that "the market is good" does not mean that the prices of live pigs and pork have soared. Instead, he believes that "the current high prices are abnormal and unsustainable."
He thinks that pig raising can get normal profits, "you have money to make, you don't need to be poor, you can afford to pay everyone, you don't have to leave your parents and children at home to work."
From 2013 to the first half of 2018, Xu Yingxing’s pig farms developed well.
The number of villagers coming to work on the pig farms has also increased: 1 in 2013, 4 in 2014, 5 in 2015, 8 in 2016, and 12 in 2017.
Calculated by the value of the assets he owned, Xu Yingxing was worth "over ten million" at the time, but he firmly believes in the old saying that "the wealthy family does not count as the ones with hairy". Since ancient times, pig raising has been very risky.
In 2017 and 2018, environmental protection storms swept across the country, and many provinces introduced regulations on bans on breeding pigs. In order to protect the water source, Jiangxi Province requires a ban on breeding within 1 kilometer around Poyang Lake and a restriction on breeding within 3 kilometers.
The local environmental protection bureau also visited his pig farm. There is no manure treatment facility here, which is obviously unqualified. He urged him to build a sewage treatment plant as soon as possible.
"A one-time investment of about 1.5 million yuan will be required, and it will run about 300,000 to 500,000 yuan per year." Xu Yingxing can't reach the industrialized sewage treatment. However, environmental protection is a good thing in the final analysis. His pig farms are often complained by nearby residents, saying that "pig dung is stored in the open air, smelly, and breeds mosquitoes and flies." Living nearby is uncomfortable.
Xu Yingxing heard that there is a kind of water celery in Suqian City, Jiangsu Province that is very effective in eating fertilizer and controlling pollution, and there is a strong demand for fertilizer.
Xu Yingxing asked the relevant persons in charge of Hukou County Environmental Protection Bureau and Agricultural Technology Station to investigate and introduce water celery to treat manure.
At the end of 2018, Xu Yingxing transferred more than 300 acres of land from the villagers to establish a combined planting and breeding ecological model of "conventional planting with soil and planting with natural water without soil". Vegetables are grown in water and fish and shrimp are stocked under water, except for pig farms. Pigs, cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks, and geese are raised ashore, and their manure is turned into fertilizer.
Xu Yingxing eliminated the smelly pig manure. "Solve the problem of agriculture in an agricultural way."
"This 300 acres of land can achieve a balance of income and expenditure and be self-sufficient." Xu Yingxing said, which is equivalent to saving money for a sewage treatment plant, but it still lacks land, water and capital investment matching the scale of the pig farm.
The main expenditure of the eco-park is the wages of more than 30 villagers including 6 poor households. Last year, the profit from the sale of crops was more than 400,000 yuan, and "more than 500,000 yuan was paid."
"Pig raising is a very free matter. I am willing to raise pigs, but because of the epidemic, I cannot leave the pig farm temporarily." Xu Yingxing said.
At the end of last year, the government started calling for pig raising again. Xu Yingxing regards the pig farm as a "golden chicken laying eggs"-as long as the equipment is still there, you can "get up from wherever you fall". He also heard that the local government had introduced subsidies for introducing pigs to encourage pig raising, so he reported the materials.
In the past few days, 120 sows in the Xu Yingxing pig farm began to farrow. He hopes that there will be no accidents in the second half of the year, so that the new cycle will start smoothly.
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Geng Xueqing Source: China Youth Daily